Burlesque Beat, part II: the mystery and the burlesquery

Caught the Monday night again at Public Ass. (“Public Assembly is just a stupid name. It will heretofore be referred to, in these pages, as Public Ass. Suits my idiom.) It’s nice to see that in spite of all the gentrification, the old Billburg spirit is alive and well at Public Ass—the bartenders suck. Too cool for school, way too cool to actually pour a drink or care about tips. Amen, my brethren

The less said about Jonny Porkpie’s Fresh Faces Showcase the better — although WordyGirl’s diss on the U.S. of A. was … something. And at midnight I had to get the hell out of there and get me some up-close-and-personal T & A.

😉

Consequently I couldn’t stick around for GiGi’s Monday Night Blue, so so all you’re gonna get is the highlights of the main event. Deal.

But first, the lowlight: While GiGi LaFemme did some truly smokin’ go-go before the first act, there was no go-go between the first and second. What? No hot bodies to look at? We’re supposed to just sit here and TALK to each other? Why the fuck would we want to do that? We came here to see boobies.

Getting back to the beginning, Madame Rosebud was working the door. This girl is close to beating out Helen Pontani for my biggest crush in the B-world, and all she did was take my money. Her face is truly a contender for launching a thousand ships, and her body could launch me into paying for breakfast time after time.

The MC was Bastard Keith — FINALLY an MC who really knows what those letters stand for. He started the evening with a rousing rendition of “Mack the Knife,” subbing the names of the night’s performers for the Mack’s bitches. That’s entertainment, folks. This guy does tired Frank tunes with the gusto of a college kid in the closet auditioning for the Spring musical. And he can ad-lib with the best of them. When asked to describe Veronica Varlow’s body, he called it “Pynchonesque.” What a nerd. He commented on cocktail waitress Nastasia’s hot pink zebra (pronounced, “Zeb – ra”) tights. (Oh, Nastasia. Ass like a lazy susan—I want to watch it go round and round.) And based on his mid-show bit, auditioning audience members for a role in his new movie, he can actually write, too. The winner of the casting couch cook-off was Faith, a fresh-faced blond with a slammin’ body in a sun dress who, once again, withheld the hipster code of ethics by coming to the show with a guy who, although he might be a super nice guy who totally loves his mom, looked like a total scumbag. I digress.

Bird of Paradise did a nice tango duet with a guy (Mr. White Boom Boom?) who stripped down to zebra-striped undies. I would have sensed a zebra theme, but I was busy looking at Bird’s body. She’s tiny, and can really move; one imagines tossing her like a pizza. We also got a really nice act from Jo Boobs, who came out decked in red — red and gold bustier, red gloves, red thigh highs, and sparkly stiletto ruby red “slippers.” This woman raises the removal of stockings to an art form, and she gets bonus points for putting the heels back on.

Veronica Varlow truly got her money’s worth when she bought those tits. High and tight and utterly lickable. We saw her twice — the first time was a classic tease in black gloves, garters and stockings, in an absolutely stunning black brocade dress, with a little fan action to a groaning clarinet. She is tall and lithe, with stoic, chiseled features and a jet-black Betty Page cut. She does a marvelous thousand yard stare. But her second act was the one: She entered in a kind of Chinese shift, turned around, unzipped it from the back, and it was as if her lovely back were splitting the fabric of the space/time continuum. It was so quick I wondered, nice reveal, but where do you go from here? She moved around briefly in a gold lame’ bra — reminiscent of Princess Leah — and a divided skirt, stepped offstage briefly to tie a cape around her neck, and then brought the cape up to flutter around the stage like a butterfly. It had sticks that she used to manipulate the fabric, and it undulated around her like the wings of a glistening sea nymph, offering glimpses of her skin as she gradually lost what little she was still wearing. Fantastic.

BUT THE ABSOLUTE WINNER OF THE EVENING WAS:

Trixie Little and the Evil Hate Monkey, all the way from Baltimore. Trixie is truly little — tiny, blonde, with perfect breasts, a flat belly, and a grape-like ass. The Hate Monkey is a dude with a hairy face and fake monkey ears. Together, they did couples acrobatics, as he lay on his back and held her up in a series of lifts as she changed position and posed. She teased, she ripped off a glove and stuffed it in her mouth. She used fans while perched atop him, and then he used the fans to hide and reveal her — and when he tickled her with the fans she giggled before barking at him to stop it. Total cute/bitchy thing. Irresistible. He pushed her up on his legs, and in nothing but a skimpy bottom and pasties she was completely upside-down for the final reveal.

In their second act, they busted out — wait for it — Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” On a black stage, Trixie lip-synched the main vocals, lighting herself up with a flashlight, while Monkey did the “Turn Around”s, appearing in flashlight light at different spots on the stage. When the song kicked so did they, doing a hot duet (if dancing with a monkey is hot) and climbing all over each other, doing some lifts and undressing each other, and, yes, he totally shoved his junk, in a banana hammock, right in her face. But what killed me is when SHE lifted HIM—picked him right up, in heels. Kitten heels, to be sure, but still — can YOU do that? He pressed her again for the final reveal and the small crowd went apeshit.

And you have to give it to them for using that song. It’s so overplayed, so overwrought, so — well — eighties, that we all love to laugh at it. And yet we all secretly relate. “Once upon a time, I was falling in love. Now I’m only falling apart.” Aw. Even if we didn’t quite drive around the neighborhood crying hysterically and bawling out the lyrics like Kate Blanchett in “Bandits,” we all love it. And Trixie and the Monkey know it. It’s enough to make you want to visit a shithole like Baltimore. Almost.

I promise to go down to Soho and check out the show at Corio for you. Soon. I promise. And maybe one of these days we’ll get some of you lazy, never-leave-the-house bastards some video.

Kiss kiss,
J.D.

POSTSCRIPT:
“J.D., you’re such an asshole. I TOLD YOU about seeing M. Rosebud at the pizza place, because you kept saying there was no way she was old enough to know who Wendy O. Williams was. If you’re going to steal from your friends, you could at least give some credit.”

Nicely put, my friend, but no, I’m not giving you any credit. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times: if you don’t want people to write down the shit you say, then you should keep your fucking mouth shut. But I will tell you that Rosebud was NOT flirting with you at that pizza place, you deluded fuck. I was congratulating Bastard Keith after the show and overheard him telling someone—Rosebud is his fiancée.

The similarity between me and Bastard Keith: we were both called “Nancy” five times last week. The difference: I beat the ever-loving crap out of five guys last week. Sorry, Keith—I’m going to have to steal your girl away and perform horrible, depraved sexual acts with her. But I like you, Keith. You can totally watch.